The Big Winner of J.D. Power’s 2013 Dependability Study

Lexus wins study of three-year-old reliability

Lexus came out on top for the second year in the row in J.D. Power’s Vehicle Dependability Study.

The study looks at the number of reported issues for the last 12 months among three-year-old models to determine overall dependability. In all, more than 37,000 car buyers responded to this year’s survey.

Lexus headed the pack with only 71 issues per 100 vehicles purchased, reports Cars.com. Porsche was second with 91. At the bottom of this year’s list is Land Rover with 220 problems. The industry average is 126 problems per 100 cars bought.

Of the bigger companies, Ford-owned (NYSE:F) Lincoln came in third, Toyota (NYSE:TM) came in fourth and Honda (NYSE:HMC) came in seventh. General Motors (NYSE:GM) brand Buick came in sixth. The bottom three slots were taken by Land Rover, Dodge and Mitsubishi.

Newer cars are showing a decline in overall defects. In general, new or redesigned cars are expected to have more problems, but the data shows that this year new cars had fewer issues than carryover cars.